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Global GameJam 2011 is a wrap
Thu, 3rd Feb 2011
FYI, this story is more than a year old

The 2011 Global GameJam took place across the globe last weekend, with 6500 participants in 44 different countries developing almost 1500 games between them - and it was all within the space of 48 hours!

Once again, given our timezone, New Zealand was the first territory in the world to kick off the event.This year's theme was "extinction", meaning teams had to develop games with this theme central to their creations.

The Auckland leg was held at the Media Design School in Auckland. Event coordinator Stephen Knightly has provided a comprehensive overview of that event at Gameplanet. At the Hamilton leg of the event, hosted at the University of Waikato's Computer Science Department, 37 developers attempted to create a five-minute game in just 48 hours. Solo developer Tim Rudkins took out the Hamilton leg with his creation, Extinction of Thought, in which the player controls a dictator who quashes the ideas of his subjects, rendering the country dull and grey. You can play Extinction of Thought here.

Another popular entry from Hamilton was Flee, by Amigo Huang and Pascal Tian, in which the player must survive in a falling building. "Basically, the player is an office guy and the world is coming to an end," said Huang. You can also check out Flee here.